Monday, December 30, 2013

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Start off the New Year with the High Quality Sound of SOL Republic's Deck Wireless Bluetooth Speaker

Thank you to SOL Republic for providing a complimentary Deck Speaker sample for us to base this review upon and for providing an additional product for our contest prize. All opinions expressed are my own.

Sometimes we fall in love with a brand and our opinions about it are always biased. For me, one of those brands is SOL Republic, I just love their products. This year SOL Republic sent me two more items to try out and review, and as always I was very excited to do so. As biased as I am towards SOL Republic, I still do my best to point out the flaws as I see them, even for products I otherwise love and recommend.

One of the products I was sent this year was the Deck Wireless Bluetooth Speaker. I was dying to get my hands on one the moment they were announced. With the prior SOL Republic products I have reviewed, I always found one or two things that were less than perfect to mention in my otherwise glowing reviews . I can tell you I have yet to find a single negative thing to say about my Deck. Sort of.

The Deck is handsome and has an asymmetric pattern of lines across its surface. As always with SOL Republic products, the Deck is offered in an assortment of fun colors . . . Electro Blue, Gunmetal, Lemon Lime, and Vivid Red. The unit feels heavy and solid when held, an important feature for a speaker with a subwoofer. The heft of the unit combined with a rubbery base keeps the unit from vibrating when reproducing SOL Republic's signature deep bass. The Deck is about the size of a small paperback novel. The unit could easily fit into a jacket pocket, but not comfortably in a pants pocket unless they are cargo pants. Mine sits perfectly next to my tablet in my bag inside the included soft case.

I feel like a broken record talking about SOL Republic's sound quality, but consistency is consistency: The Deck sounds wonderful. It generates decent bass from its subwoofer, a real treat for such a small speaker. And as always with SOL Republic, the range is not sacrificed for the bass. My tastes in music include everything from opera to death metal and the Deck keeps pace nicely.

The Deck manages to broadcast its sound 360 degrees from the unit, an excellent feature allowing you to place the unit anywhere and still hear the quality sound. Another feature that really stood out to me was the volume, the Deck is LOUD. Trust me when I tell you my office co workers have been enjoying the Deck as well…… whether they liked it or not (When it’s time to rock out, it’s time to rock out!). The Deck is an excellent choice for listening to music outdoors where a bit of volume is required.

SOL Republic claims the Deck has a 300 foot range with its Superpower Wireless feature. Although I was not able to prove or disprove that, it did start to get choppy about 60 feet away in my office. But I hardly take issue with that, Bluetooth is only advertised to work up to 30 feet and my office is made of concrete and steel, the bane of wireless devices.

Pairing to the Deck was as easy as can be, just point your device to the Deck and pair, no password required. Another unique feature is Heist Mode that allows up to 5 devices to send music to the speaker. What a great idea for parties, anybody can be a DJ with the Deck! As cool as Heist mode is, I can see it being equally annoying and fortunately you can turn it off.

The Deck comes with all the accessories required to charge its 10 hour battery (tested and verified by the way) and hook directly up to your device when wireless isn't an option.

The closest thing to a fault I can come up with for the Deck really isn't a fault. As amazing as the Deck sounds, it is still a compact speaker. Big speakers will almost always sound better than little ones. Now of course technology and quality play a big part in this, but assuming those are equal, bigger is always better. Having said that, the Deck sounds every bit as good as a speaker of its size should, MUCH better in fact. If you compare its sound to a larger and equally quality speaker you will be disappointed. But for me, if its too big I won’t bring it with me unless I know I need it. The Deck goes with me everywhere, even if I don't plan on using it. I LOVE that. Can you buy a better sounding speaker? Yes, but it’s going to be much larger and certainly more expensive.

If you want to bring high quality sound with you, in my opinion, there is no better option than the SOL Republic Deck. There are lots of great wireless speakers out there, but SOL Republic gets it right... Again. Great sound, fantastic quality, compact, and at $199.99 priced similarly or better than its competition. Yet again SOL Republic wins my heart through my ears.

If you haven't guessed by now, I recommend the Deck wholeheartedly. The Deck would make an excellent gift for yourself or any travelling audiofile. Visit www.solrepublic.com to learn more.

This giveaway is open to U.S. entries only. You do not need to be a blogger to enter, but you must have a valid email address and be age 18 years or older. A random drawing will be held shortly after the contest closing. The winner will be announced here and will be contacted via email. If the winner does not respond within 48 hours, a new winner will be drawn.